I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an electrostatic projectile accelerator apparatus and related method and, more specifically relates to such apparatus and method for accelerating a projectile through a plurality of stages using split plates. The accelerator apparatus may be employed, for example, in a vacuum chamber or in free space.
II. Description of Related Art
Previous projectile accelerators are known, the most common of which are various forms of chemically-activated guns. The maximum projectile velocity attainable by such guns is limited by the speed of the propagation of the shockwave generated by the guns. Alternative apparatus, such as multi-stage, chemically-activated guns for sequentially accelerating the projectile have also been employed, but such apparatus are also limited in the projectile velocities attainable.
Electrostatic projectile accelerators are known wherein a high voltage source establishes an electric field between a single pair of electrode plates. A charged projectile is introduced through a hole in the first plate, and is accelerated by the electric field toward the second plate, where the projectile passes through an exit hole. The electric field in such accelerators can be arranged to be confined essentially between the first and second plates of the pair, thereby reducing deceleration of the charged projectile after the projectile passes through the exit hole. Such electrostatic projectile accelerators, however, require extremely high voltages in order to attain a significant projectile velocity, because the projectile velocity attainable is proportional to the square root of the voltage applied to the accelerator.
Alternative electrostatic projectile accelerators have been proposed to attain desired projectile velocities without requiring excessive voltages. Such accelerators typically utilize several acceleration regions to achieve high projectile velocities with a lower voltage source. However, such accelerators inherently include deceleration regions between the acceleration regions which can significantly decrease the projectile velocity, thereby greatly undermining the efficiency of such accelerators. The deceleration regions can be reduced by using a separate voltage supply for each electrostatic plate; however such configuration would be tantamount to using a single high voltage supply, as described above.
Electromagnetic accelerators may be useful as an alternative. However, such accelerators require heavy electromagnets as well as the expenditure of excessive amounts of power to establish magnetic fields, much of which is dissipated as heat.